Here Comes the Sun
by JaelJam
Summary: Ch. 2: The moment she found her way in the world, the very second when she was beginning to come into terms with everything she had and everything she lost, the world made it its mission to disrupt and uproot her life.
1. Hear You Me

Marceline was just five years old when her mother got sick.

At the time, she had no idea what it meant for her mother when she was bedridden, and when her father barely moved from her side. All that Marceline knew was that her parents were busy and couldn't do things for her, which left her fending for herself in what she would now consider the loneliest time in her life. She had few friends and, due to the war raging, those she had were barred from leaving their homes. She was alone.

Marceline was forced to play in the general vicinity of her house, where her father was able to keep an eye on her on the rare occasion he wasn't at her mother's bedside. It was the safest place to be, due to raging rumors that there was a man in the woods who would eat you alive without a second thought about it.

No one would dare mess with a deathless being's family, and so Marceline had very little to worry about during this time.

Little Marceline would spend her days playing soccer with a ball that obviously needed more air, hula-hooping, and running through the trees, chasing down the pixies that came much too close to her house. If there was one thing she hated, it was those blasted creatures. They always tried to cause trouble and make noise when her mother was sleeping, and so it was Marceline's personal mission to keep them away from the house. Besides, if she didn't run them away her father would suck out their souls and leave their corpses wherever they fell to rot. Marceline couldn't stand seeing dazed and dying pixies walking around her house. They were _disgusting_.

As soon as Marceline developed a routine in her rather mundane life, it was shattered.

"Marceline," Martin said as he watched her kick a ball against a nearby tree from the porch on a hot afternoon. He had been sitting on the steps for well over an hour, and Marceline did her best to ignore him because he looked incredibly stressed and she didn't want to be a bother. She had to try her hardest to not look too pleased when he addressed her. "Come talk to your mother. She wants to see you."

She gasped, the ball bouncing off of the tree and rolling back towards her, forgotten. Having been craving attention from her mother, because she was not allowed to see her due to her illness, Marceline ran right past her father and into the house, where she made a beeline to her parent's bedroom. With the enthusiasm of any happy-go-lucky child, Marceline jumped right onto the bed, only settling down once her knees touched the side of her mother's leg. "Daddy said you wanted to see me, mama?" It was questioning, in the case that her father was playing some cruel, sick joke on her. He was known for his weird sense of humor, at least before her mother got sick.

"I have something for you," her mother said as she smiled brightly, reminding little Marceline of a time not too long ago where she was healthy and her family was happier. After a long moment, the woman pulled out a stuffed animal that looked like some strange hybrid cross between a bear and a monkey. It was made of several pieces of different colored material because simple things such as fabric were becoming difficult to come by, with shops hoarding them and selling them for absurd prices merely because they could and because there was nothing anyone could do to stop them.

And yet, despite his mismatched colors and his button eyeballs being two very different sizes, Marceline gasped. "Is this for me?" She asked, torn between staring at the bear or her mother.

Her mother nodded, holding the bear out to the little girl, who immediately clutched it to her chest once it was in her hands. Marceline's mother struggled to sit up, but once she had she wrapped her arms around her daughter. "It's so you'll never have to be alone, my love." She placed a kiss on Marceline's head, and the little girl beamed. "What will you call him?"

It didn't take long for the little girl to choose a name. "Hambo! I'll call him Hambo."

"That's a great name." Her mother said as she glanced over at Martin, who had been lingering in the doorway since Marceline settled down on the bed. "I love you, Marceline. Remember that. Now, go have fun with Hambo. Tell me about your adventures later."

"I will!" Marceline threw her arms around her mother, giving her one last tight hug before running off, turning sideways so she could scoot past her father at the doorway. "Come on Hambo! Those pixies should be coming back now. They always come out at this time. They're pretty stupid, you know?"

Her mother drifted off to sleep at the sound of her daughter talking animatedly to the stuffed animal. Martin sat at the end of the bed and watched her for the longest time before he even thought about adjusting his position so his neck was no longer craned.

* * *

><p>Marceline clutched Hambo's arm tightly as she jumped from tree limb to tree limb, showing him all the places where an important event occurred. "Right here is where I punched my first pixie in the face. He tried to bite me after he scratched me." As she pointed out the long, thin scar where the little bugger had scratched her was when she saw something moving in the corner of her eye. Someone was <em>actually<em> walking into the forest. Perhaps he heard the rumors and thought he was strong enough to take a stand against her father? For a moment, she wondered if she should warn the stranger. She could be creepy if she wanted to, with her blue skin and unnaturally sharp teeth.

Right when she was about to jump down, she caught sight of his face… if it could even be called a face. It was Death.

Death was a good friend of her father's (although he cheated Death to gain his "deathless" status) but the man always gave her the creeps. It was hard to stop staring at his empty eye sockets, and it was even harder to discern whether or not he was looking at her or at, say, the very expensive vase in the hallway.

He was heading towards her house and she followed him as quietly as she could, worried that he was going to try to hurt her mother or her father. She was pleased to see that her father was standing right outside of the house, as though he were standing guard.

"Martin," Death said in greeting, dipping his hat. "You know what I'm here for." Martin said nothing as he looked past Death and into the trees. "I'm sorry, my friend. I cannot change the rules."

"I know." Martin turned on his heel, hesitating before entering the house.

Several minutes passed before Marceline found the will to move. Suddenly very frightened, she jumped to the ground with an_ oomph_ before she dusted herself—and Hambo—off. Although she opened the front door slowly, as to not alert either of the men of her presence, it ended up squeaking loudly (of course it would happen that way; everything she tried to do quietly always ended up being very, very loud). Once inside, she tip-toed her way through, her free hand sliding against the wall as she made her way into her parent's bedroom. Death stood by her mother, with his hand hovering over her face. On the other side, her father was on his knees leaning against the bed, holding one of her hands with both of his. Her mother was still as stone.

Seeing her father's shoulders shake but unable to see his face made Marceline freeze in her tracks. With wide eyes, she whispered, "daddy, what's wrong with mama?" He didn't answer her, and so she forced herself to take a few more steps into the room. "Daddy?"

Although the skeleton looked at her, her father did not move. Trembling, she continued to inch closer to him. Upon seeing her father crying silently, tears began to well up in her eyes. "What's wrong with mama?" She repeated, this time looking up at Death for some sort of validation that everything was going to be alright.

He gave her no comfort. "I'm sorry, kid." He whispered before heading towards the door. "Martin, take care." Without another glance back, he left the house for good.

Marceline stood there with her father for a few minutes before the man finally regained his composure, although his face was stained with tears and his eyes were red. "She's gone, Marceline." He muttered with a shaky voice. When Marceline dropped Hambo and finally burst into tears, Martin was not sure what to do. He was not a man people went to for emotional comfort, considering his position in the world. He may have bounced Marceline on his knees and told her stories for all of her young life, but when it came to comfort the little girl always went to her mother. It was the way things worked for them. He turned slightly, awkwardly wrapping his arms around her and bringing her head against his chest as he stared off into the distance.

Trying to calm Marceline down and fight back his own tears at the same time, Martin did the only thing he could think of. "_Here comes the sun,_" he sang as his head ducked down and his grip on Marceline tightened. "_And I say it's alright._"

It was the last time Marceline saw him for the rest of the year.

**A/N: This concludes the first chapter, guys! Although this doesn't follow any sort of absolute defined plot, the chapters will be written in order according to Marceline's age. Due to the ideas I have in regards to the upcoming chapters, this story might even be written in arcs. The updating might be erratic, because I'm a student and I am nearly always busy but I'm determined to write **_**at least **_**a chapter a week. **

**I do listen to the readers, so please drop a review and tell me what can be improved upon/what you hope to see/anything at all!**

**The rating **_**might**_** be bumped up due to violence I'm planning on having in a future chapter, but I don't think it's anything too serious.**

**My final note will be on romance. There will definitely be some romance in the form of Marceline's past boyfriend(s). I will tentatively say there is no pairing, although depending on how the story progresses there might be some Finnceline. I just wanted to leave that option open for me.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Heal Over

Not even an hour after his wife died, Martin had buried and set a grave marker for her a little deeper into the forest, where some wild flowers grew and things were still beautiful. Marceline watched him from a few feet away as he stood in silence for another twenty minutes before returning to the house. After a full minute of staring straight at Marceline, he quietly announced that he had business to attend to. His daughter looked too much like his late wife, and he didn't think he could look at her without crying. It was way too much for Martin to deal with.

He left Marceline alone in that house, and she couldn't say anything about it. There was nothing _to_ say, so she held Hambo and hiccupped while she cried for nearly an hour after he departed.

If Marceline held Hambo close enough, she could swear that he smelled like her mother and father. Although her parents were gone, she still had Hambo; her mother even said he would make sure she was never alone.

It was a thought that kept her spirits up.

* * *

><p>Several months later, Marceline was still attempting to adjust to her new life. She managed to find money all around the house and purchased food for herself at ridiculous prices, and even managed to go home and <em>cook<em> it without burning something down. However, it was the silence that nearly killed her. Everything around her house suddenly seemed much larger than it actually was. She no longer had her father's stories, or her mother's lullabies.

However, despite her best efforts, people did see her coming in and out of the forest where the man-eater was said to have lived. They even found her house, and they ransacked it while she and Hambo hid amongst the trees. They didn't get much despite their efforts, just some spare change and that expensive vase in the hallway her mother liked so much. Marceline was smart, and hid jewelry and other small valuables under a loose floorboard she pulled up from under her bed.

Although it scared her to think that these people could come back any time they wished, Marceline was a brave little girl and she tried not to let it bother her.

She managed to go through her days with Hambo, and even met some other children at a run-down park on a relatively quiet day one afternoon. When she got home, she found an old, dusty cookbook and even made a chocolate cake with Hambo (she was covered in flour and chocolate, but it was delicious and fun and it reminded her of her mother; she cried while she ate that cake but she would never admit it to anyone). Her days were quiet, filled with her imagination and Hambo, but it was becoming a peaceful quiet.

Marceline should have realized that History always repeats itself.

The moment she found her way in the world, the very second when she was beginning to come into terms with everything she had and everything she lost, the world made it its mission to disrupt and uproot her life.

She was lying in the grass outside of her house, staring up at what little of the sky she could see past the trees when she saw something fly by. She immediately sat up, recognizing the object as a plane. Planes never flew over the city, and so she found herself climbing the closest tree with Hambo in order to see where it was going.

She watched in horror as it dropped a bomb. Overhead, other planes were joining the fray, and Marceline had to pry herself away once the city started to go up in a ball of flame.

Marceline trembled in fear, and something inside her told her to run.

She found herself in front of the cellar door, pulling it open with a grunt. Once inside, she slammed it shut, and got down on her hands and knees as she attempted to find a hiding place. It was too dark to see, the lamp was too high for her to reach, and she didn't trust her legs to keep her upright. Marceline made it to the cabinet where she started to store canned food and knocked everything into the floor as she crawled inside with Hambo. Despite her best efforts to come up with a plan, she didn't know what to do, other than to just sit there and wait for the chaos outside to pass.

Although she doubted the bombs would go off anywhere near her house, there was always the fear of the unknown… and the sinking feeling that if something horrible _did_ happen, her mother and father weren't there to help her. Though the explosions outside were horrifying, what Marceline truly feared now was being alone. She no longer knew what to do.

Somewhere outside, she heard someone screaming and begging for their life. She covered her ears and closed her eyes, believing that if she sat there long enough, everything would stop.

She tried not to flinch when the cellar door opened and someone walked inside. The clicking of their boots sounded all-too familiar, but Marceline was absolutely convinced that her best chance of survival was to sit still and wait, and that perhaps they wouldn't notice her and Hambo. Her heart jumped in her throat when she heard the click of the lamp and the lights flickered on. _Don't move_, she told herself as she sat there.

"Marceline?" The last thing she expected was a familiar voice. "Marceline, are you in here?" It was her father. Word traveled fast between Earth and the Nightosphere and when Martin heard that bombs had fallen, he knew he needed to see his daughter.

In her haste to get out of the cabinet, Marceline hit her head. "Daddy?" She crawled out, and immediately ran for him, lifting her arms up for him to pick her up. He obliged, holding her against him. With a sigh of relief, Marceline rested her head against his shoulder.

Martin's hands trembled as he brought her back outside, and he avoided letting her see the body of the man whose soul he just sucked out. A heavy silence fell between them as he walked her into the house.

"…Will you be staying, daddy?" She finally asked.

Martin placed her in her bed and brought the blankets around her. "No." he answered, sitting down at the edge. Right when it looked as though she were about to cry, his gaze wandered down to his hands. "I'll be back though. I have to tie up some loose ends in the Nightosphere."

Marceline wanted to believe her father, she really did. However, after months of being alone in the house, she wasn't sure she could. "Do you promise?"

"Yes." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I'll leave when you fall asleep."

True to his word, Martin sat there for well over an hour as Marceline fought sleep. She didn't want to see her father leave, but as young as she was, exhaustion took over. When she woke to an empty house, she wished that everything that happened the day before was just a dream. Marceline didn't want to think about how much it hurt to realize her father just came and left.

**A/N: This concludes chapter two guys! We'll be entering Marceline's teen years in the next chapter. C:**

**I want to take the time to thank everyone who reviewed, sent me PMs, faved and added this story to their alerts. Thank you! You all rock, and I hope you enjoy the story!**


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